Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 8

Kemi Badenoch wants to drag the Tories further right. That is a huge mistake | Simon Jenkins

What voters want is a display of reliability and competence – but the current favourite for next leader has other ideas

Politics never ends. Today the selection begins of the leader of the opposition and thus possibly the next British prime minister. The pollsters’ current favourite is Kemi Badenoch. She is intelligent and clearly popular with her party’s grassroots. But the supposedly rightwing stall set out in her manifesto, published in the Times, raises more doubts than it offers answers.

If t...

Keir Starmer, please – scrap the distasteful weekly brawl that is PMQs | Simon Jenkins

Parliament’s fusty old procedures badly need updating. The PM should start with a spectacle that serves no benefit

Boring. That was the universal response to Wednesday’s first prime minister’s questions of the new parliament. Where was the screaming, yelling, insulting and air punching? This is supposed to be Strictly Come Politicking. Get off stage, the two of you. Zero points.

The Telegraph condemned the new PMQs as a “love-in”. The prime minister was like a teenager “breaking the news he had lo...

Kamala Harris is no dominating leader – and that may be her biggest strength | Simon Jenkins

A shortage of accomplishments as vice-president does not matter: her real job is to weld together a shattered Democratic party

Kamala Harris is now the frontrunner to be the Democratic party’s candidate for the most powerful job in the world. She appears sorely underqualified, though she is hardly more so than the two men she wishes to succeed. Criticising the failings of leaders thrown up by US democracy has long been a European sport. It may be more useful instead to suggest their possible stre...

David Cameron failed to foist new houses on rural areas. Why does Keir Starmer think he’ll succeed? | Simon Jenkins

Labour’s bonfire of planning regulations will stir up the shires and let down those most in need – but the construction lobby will be happy

Outside Glastonbury last month, festivalgoers might have caught sight of David Cameron’s policy of planning de-regulation in action, sprawling across Somerset. Acres of identikit houses, mini-Tudor and mini-Georgian, seemingly flown in and dumped from somewhere off London’s North Circular Road. Hundreds of other similar estates appeared across Gloucestershire...

It’s worrying to see the prime minister cheerleading for war. Will Ukraine turn into Starmer’s Iraq? | Simon Jenkins

The Nato summit offered a chance to work towards resolution. But instead, Starmer talked about long-range missiles

When Keir Starmer entered Downing Street, a few foreign events were arranged to glamorise his arrival. He visited a Nato summit and promised to spend more on defence. He pledged £3bn a year for Ukraine, apparently from his back pocket. He was a little reckless and said his talks with Joe Biden had happened “at pace” and were attentive to detail. But he said something else. He wanted ...

He’s beaten and humiliated, but Rishi Sunak has one final job to do – for party and country | Simon Jenkins

He must do everything he can to make sure it is MPs, and not party members, who choose his successor

You can grieve over the bodies, the coffins, the funeral rites, but the worst aftermath of death is the autopsy. Who, or what, was to blame?

Focus groups at the start of the campaign were clear. The electorate wanted to blame the sufferings of the country on one thing: 14 years of Tory rule. In Scotland it passed a similar judgment on nationalist rule. Polls showed that Labour’s leader, Keir Starme...

Labour to win, Tories to lose: but why can’t Britain have radical MPs free to speak their minds? | Simon Jenkins

With just one change, we could have more independent voices in the Commons. We are going to need them

For the next two years, the best job in British politics will be leader of the opposition. The first two years is usually the honeymoon period for an opposition party. Keir Starmer, meanwhile – if he is indeed the next prime minister – will be wrestling with an appalling bequest: a cabinet bereft of recent cabinet experience and his vague election promises of “growth”. A deft opponent would be wi...

Message to Labour: don’t tax school fees. Make private schools work for the public good | Simon Jenkins

Finding a balance between privatisation and nationalisation has defied past governments – the party must make this its mission

To tax or not to tax? Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private schools seemed a good idea at the time. Its programme was bereft of leftist clout. The tax would hit privilege at its roots, and bring in a windfall £1.6bn to benefit deprived state schools. What was not to like?

The trouble is that every tax carries unintended consequences. Estimates were that most parents would...

Farage’s Ukraine comments were hardly offensive – other party leaders could use a history lesson | Simon Jenkins

Yes, the Reform leader’s words were opportunistic. But at their root is a call for peace – and that should be on everyone’s minds

Is Nigel Farage guilty as charged? An appeaser, a disgrace, an apologist for Putin, an insult to Ukraine, says a chorus of British party leaders on the election campaign trail. They are clearly delighted to hurl abuse at the surging Reform party, an attack that does not involve spending public money.

What Farage said was that Nato and the EU bore some responsibility for...

Come 5 July, an almighty fight looms. Keir Starmer, take on the countryside at your peril | Simon Jenkins

Britain’s landscape is under threat from developers and rapacious corporations. But I have a solution – if the next PM will listen

What do Britons most love about Britain? At the last count it was still the NHS. After that it was not the royal family, the army or democracy. Believe it or not, it is the countryside, according to polling commissioned last year by Future Countryside, an initiative of the Countryside Alliance. Today, the NHS may cram election manifestos, but of the countryside we hea...